He’s not the most complete bike racer but he is now the best Tour de France sprinter with the green jersey. Marc Cavendish fulfilled his dearest Tour de France goal this year and here is what his winning form looked like at the end of the 2011 Tour in Paris:

His frustration with the Tour this year sort of burst out in some individual aggression on a Tour fan who just got too close to Alberto in his penultimate fight to gain the yellow jersey and top GC standing.

These kinds of Tour fans behave clownishly and don’t give much room to the competitors, especially on the HC climbs, like the Alpe d’Huez. More power to Alberto here since he seems to have acted in a normal human, like “Get out of the way you idiot!”

Mark Cavendish may have been the man to take the podium as the winner of today’s 15th stage to Montpellier but, as the Manxman is so often the first to point out, he was just the final member of a sterling nine-man team effort. HTC-Highroad put their stamp all over this transition stage from start to finish, controlling the chase, the intermediate sprint and the finish to increase their man’s stranglehold on the green jersey. In claiming his fourth win of this Tour Cavendish became the first sprinter (and only the second rider after Eddy Merckx) to win at least four stages at four consecutive Tours de France. Quite simply, this is the most dominant sprinter in the most polished team the sport of cycling has ever seen.

There is something majestic about the kind of military parades that France puts on every Bastille Day. It seems to me that only the Russians put on similar military events with lots of troops on foot, on horseback, in military vehicles and in planes. Here is a glimpse at the parade this year with a view of the Arche de Triomphe in the background: